The Quagga Prize

The Quagga
Prize for Literary Fiction was established in 2014 as a much-needed door to
fiction of significant merit. It honours the spirit of independent
publishers, especially those who, for various reasons, may feel locked-out from
major awards.

The Promoter
and Principal Judge is David James, a reputable academic and author of six
novels and a collection of short stories.

The 2014
entry proved highly successful and the Quagga Gold Medal was presented to Enver
Carim for The Price of an Education at an Award Ceremony in London on
November 4, 2014.

The award ceremony for 2015; gold medal won by Peter Cowlam for his book Who's Afraid of the Booker Prize?

Small Prizes: The Way Ahead

Why go in for Prizes?I write to please myself, not for others. We’ve all heard that mantra, and many of us believe it. But there are prizes out there, some very large, many quite small. And in your heart of hearts you know you covet recognition: a good review, a warm response, a pat on the back. Above all you want readers - apart that is from friends and family.

However, I do get a little tired of reading about ‘award-winning’ authors and wonder about the nature of the award, not to mention whether the award is for this book or one of the writer’s earlier efforts. Once an award winner, always an award winner! Nevertheless, I must be at least marginally impressed. For the small-time author, such an accolade is a great comfort. For the apprentice writer it’s the first step on the road to what we think of as success. Even to be short-listed is a treasure in itself.

Yes, there are hundreds of prizes and awards of all kinds advertised on the net, but there are also thousands of writers, both seasoned and neophyte, and the number grows by the minute. Unless you are already attached to a publisher or are backed by a reputable agent or a well-known sponsor, the Booker is out; in any case Rule 3(d) clearly states ‘self-published books are not eligible where the author is the publisher.’

But to come down to earth: James Minter gives a useful list of Fifty Book Awards Open to Self-Publishers. This could be a good place to start your search. All genres and types of writing are open to budding writers here, from the prestigious ForeWord, the Ippy and the Rubery awards to flash fiction, cookbook, first novel, first chapter and even prizes for the first page. So don’t be shy of entering. We all have to begin somewhere.

Unless you are submitting to your local writing group’s monthly or yearly prize you should expect to pay an entry fee. After all it takes time to read and assess the value of a book or even a flimsy manuscript. Fees naturally vary enormously, from gratis to $80 per title; and so do the prizes, from an offer of journal publication to the Writers Digest 23rd Annual Writing Competion for Self-Published Book Awards topping the list at $8,000.

Of course it’s a rule of thumb that the higher the fee, the higher the sought-after prize. Winners of high profile Gold or even Silver medals are frequently garlanded with offers of book deals, free air passages to attend humungous ceremonies, with much bolstering of ego and promises of gold in store. But the most your also-ran can expect is a book report - of vastly varying quality in my experience. Thus a judge of my road novel Paris Bound had clearly not read much of the book, spending all his time savaging the cover. By contrast, five years later the same company awarded me 100% in 4 out of 5 categories for my novel about a girl boxer, Punching Judy. Prize-hunting is a bit of a lottery. One man’s meat and all that.

Rejection is par for the course, so you have to get used to it. There may be many reasonswhy your work doesn’t quite hit the mark, including the obvious one of your not complyingwith the guidelines. First, check past winners to ensure you have not submitted, for instance,literary fiction where crime or romance is the speciality. No point either in sending inmanuscripts or galleys to Mom’s Choice Awards. Next, you should examine the credentialsof the judges. Are they likely to be sympathetic to your subject or approach? Havingchecked that you have done all that the gatekeepers have demanded, take a close look at thejudge’s report. The tastes and values of the judging panel may not be yours. If not, goelsewhere. Next time widen or even narrow your field. Or cut and come again.

The most obvious reason for rejection is often overlooked by the enthusiastic writer. It’ssimply that your work is not good enough. That’s a tough thing to tell yourself, but it maywell be true. Having accepted that fact, do you give up or try again, getting a little closer tothe required standard? If you’re a writer of course you write; you revise, reshape or scrap. Ifyou really believe in your manuscript or book you perhaps need to take advice from a fellowprofessional. There are plenty of literary consultants to be found on the net. They may wellbe able to set you straight. In this regard I found Fiction Feedback very helpful.

Book festivals are another avenue the serious writer might explore. There are hundreds ofthese spreading across the globe. Almost every major city seems eager to promote newwriting, from Beverly Hills to San Francisco, from the Beach Book Festival to London, Parisand New York. Once again large prizes await the lucky winners and some of these festivalshave as many as 40 different categories. More and more of these jamborees are now open todigital as well as paper books. Watch the dates and submit to as many as you can afford!Far less prestigious awards or simply publication on the websites of social medea such asAuthonomy, Youwriteon, The Book Shed or Year Zero Writers are ways of keeping incontact with other writers and readers. Random House and Orion review their Top TenBudding Authors on Youwriteon monthly throughout the year. Listed authors can sell theirbooks direct from the website. There’s always somebody looking for your book and as awriter these days there’s really no excuse for not having a go. This way you circumvent thetraditional publishing process with its agonising delays in response time. You are in charge,you are respected and with a bit of luck you are even earning money.

So, although we may look up to the stars and envy those who have landed a 6-figure contractfor their book, the majority of us are struggling on the lower slopes of Mount Parnassus. Weare for the most part the humble toilers in the field and need to accept that fact. That doesn’tmean that we don’t strive to make our work as good as possible, nor does it mean that wedon’t shoot for the top prizes on occasion. But we accept the fact that sometimes small canalso be beautiful.

From the Quagga Prize-giving 2016

THE INSIDE STORY

Imagine
you are Charles Dickens. Not yet the
famous author but still just a boy forced to leave school and work in a
blacking factory. Imagine you are Becky Sharp, a poor despised governess to the
children of a dissolute peer. How do you
feel? Could things ever get any
worse? Why did the gods single you out
for such undeserved punishment? Tell
your story.

The
advantages of having an established person or character as the teller of your
tale are many. You can chose your
favourite author or one of his or her characters and see the world afresh from
their point of view. Was Heathcliff
really such a monster? In his own
eyes? Or was he the embryonic working
class hero surrounded by the effete privileged Lintons? If you choose to work with a historical
figure you have abundant biographical material to hand and probably letters to
give the flavour of period and idiom. But
using a character from a novel gives you more scope.

By
using the first person as the narrator you can immediately engage your reader.
My novel as told by Thackeray’s feisty heroine Becky begins, ‘Last night I went
looking for a man and ended up with a woman.’ She then proceeds to inveigh
against the author of Vanity Fair for
dishing the dirt on her. The character
rises up and demonises the author. Who
to believe? Neither of course, for the
whole cock and bull story is a fiction based on a fiction.

In
my Dickens novel I keep the famous man in the background for several sections
of the book, while the other members of his family, his wife, children and the
servants have their say. The action is based on Dickens’ Italian tour of 1844-5,
his dabbling in hypnotism and his ambiguous relationship with his ‘patient’ Mme
de la Rue. Considerably more research
was needed for this book, but the imaginative element was exciting and extensive. It’s far from being a biography.

When
I was giving a lecture at the Winchester Writers Conference a couple of years
ago I met a delegate who had won a prize in a short story competition. She had been asked to write a story based on a
Jane Austen novel from the point of view of a minor character. She chose to see the world of Pride and Prejudice from the perspective
not of Darcy or Elizabeth, but Lady Caroline de Burgh. What a revelation! It’s almost impossible not to sympathise with
the loveless and rejected creature who was so snobbishly superior in the
original novel.

So,
for those among you who are determined to get out of the autobiographical mould,
or who are perhaps like me Victorian junkies, and who have the temerity to take
liberties with the established classics, why not venture into the sequel or
fictional biography? While there are
many snipers waiting to shoot you down for inaccuracy or for cheating by using
other authors’ works, there are also some distinct advantages.

The pitch is there, the goalposts are in place (though
you can shift them a little here and there).
You can play your own game. You
are now safe from the solipsistic approach that dogs so many debut writers – grandad’s
war experiences, your own unhappy childhood or painful love affairs of interest
only to you. You are safe from
drum-beating, personal agony and not tempted to indulge in – one hopes – any cod
philosophising or axe-grinding.
Furthermore, you have a ready audience of classics lovers who are
pleased to hear a new tune played on an old fiddle.

David
James is a Victorian scholar, teacher, publisher and writer. His novels include The Confessions of Becky Sharp, Charles
Dickens and the Night Visitors and The
Scholar’s Tale.